


i took the road less traveled by

by pasdecoeur



Series: stevetony works [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Coming Out, First Dates, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), THEY ...... YEARN, THIS TIME WITH PINING, WITH OLD FASHIONED LONGING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 02:47:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: In which Tony builds a crystal ball, sets perfectly innocent chairs on fire, escapes clinics — and falls in love in a dream.“What do you think?” Steve asks him, when he's done, fidgeting with the flag lapel pin nervously. Tony bats his hands away and then surveys him, swallowing.“How late do you think we can be to the party?” Tony asks, lightly tamping down the edge of Steve’s collar. His voice has dropped a little, and his pants feel tight.Steve grins. “Oh no you don’t,” he says, and kisses Tony again, one of those fond, quick kisses, like sips of honey, and Tony’s fast, he’s gotlightningreflexes, dammit, and he snags Steve’s tie before he can pull away.And Steve— melts. Curls around Tony, big hands sneaking up underneath his tux jacket, practically dipping him over with his kisses, soft and yearning and unbearable, every second in the dimness of this hidden space, like sugar-sweet icicles are coring into his chest.Not real, not real,bleats the voice inside his head.This isn’t real. He isn’t real.Neither are you, Tony retorts, and hauls Steve closer.If this can only be in a dream, Tony will make it last a lifetime.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: stevetony works [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523429
Comments: 20
Kudos: 291





	i took the road less traveled by

**Author's Note:**

> title paraphrased from frost's the road not taken.  
sorry about the sundry and various mistakes. i was too impatient to get this beta'd.

Tony welded in the last plate of the device. He hadn’t picked a name yet for the thing, but it was basically a Monte Carlo simulator taken to the next logical level: a machine capable of balancing trillions upon trillions of variables to simulate the results of small scale changes in decision making in the real world, and the only way to make it better was to give it as much data as possible, which, when you factored JARVIS in, was quite a lot.

It was, essentially, a technological crystal ball. They didn’t call him the futurist for nothing. 

“Run against specs, check for variations,” Tony murmured, putting away the welding kit. 

“Prototype within margin. Ready for alpha testing,” JARVIS reported. 

“Alright. Plug this in. What if… Let’s not do anything involving the Avengers for the trial run. Something easy. What if… What if I came out.”

“What if you revealed your bisexuality?” JARVIS asked to confirm.

“Yeah. I’m forty-one.” Tony scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I’m not working with the DoD. Public approval’s above eighty percent, stocks are high, Pep’s in charge of the company, and even if those numbers are soft, I got nothing to lose. So what if… What if I came out, now, finally. Project, let’s say, three months from today. Show me what would happen.”

“Parsing variables…”

Tony pressed the electrodes to his temples, sat down in the custom built chair that formed the central unit of the device. Pulled the padded straps over his chest, felt the large, hemispherical top of the machine descend over his head, so the rim was just level with his mouth, almost totally obscuring his peripheral vision. He felt the hum of the machine build around him, a barely perceptible vibration, felt it groan and tremble and grow steadily louder.

“Compositing alternate reality…”

_Alternate reality? _Tony thought. He hadn’t pushed the parameters of the build quite that far, had he? This was the problem with operating on nothing but caffeine. Things… slipped.

“Transporting, in five…”

_Transporting?!_

“Four, three, brace for impact, sir, two—”

* * *

  
  
  


Tony woke up slowly. It was one of those rare moments, when you knew you were mostly asleep, but it had been a _good _sleep, deep and thoroughly restful, and you climbed out of unhurriedly, like swimming through a warm, clouded lake, unwilling to let go of the last dregs of peace. He shifted in his bed, blinking languorously. The room was filled with a dull, golden glow, like it was mid-afternoon, and there was, Tony could now hear, somebody else in bed with him, a hard, long body against his, a thickly muscled arm thrown over his chest. Tony turned into that glorious heat, his palm finding warm silken skin, palm skating down a long golden back.

“You're up,” the other man murmured, and that’s when Tony finally took notice because— because, even low and sleep-fuzzled— god, that voice was terribly familiar, wasn’t it?

“Cap?” Tony asked, stunned. 

A dark blond head shifted up, and then there were those blue-green eyes, blinking lazily at him. “Tony,” _Captain America_ said. “Hey. When did you get here?”

“When did _you _get here?” Tony shot back reflexively, but instead of the disapproving frown he’d come to expect, Steve rolled his eyes, smiled a little. His hand touched Tony’s cheek. Rubbed a spot just below his mouth. “I missed you,” Steve whispered, and then he was dipping downwards, brushing their lips together, before, Jesus god, before pulling away. 

Tony only barely managed to bite back the groan of protest. 

“How was Mumbai?” Steve was asking him, but all Tony could think about was that kiss. Who cared about Mumbai, when Steve was kissing him, like, like _that, _all casual and careless and breathtakingly sweet, when he was saying things like _I miss you _while lying in Tony’s bed, how could Tony think of, god, _anything _else. 

“Fine,” Tony said. “Hot. Crowded.”

_Kiss me, _he thought frantically. _Kiss me kiss me kiss me, _and like Steve had had some kind of telepathic subroutine implanted in his brain, he ducked down once again, his palm cupping the side of Tony’s face, and they were kissing again. This time, Steve licked his mouth open, bit into his lips, groaned when he touched Tony’s tongue. This time their kiss was lush and hot, full of wants and desperate desires. Steve hadn’t worn anything besides his boxers to bed and thank goodness, neither had Tony; he could feel the bulge of Steve’s cock against his thigh, it felt hot and hard and _enormous, fuck. _Tony wanted to flip Steve over, to crawl down that long gorgeous body, take that monster of his cock into his mouth, let Steve fuck his mouth, his throat, do whatever he wanted, what Tony wanted, _god _he wanted— but that would mean not kissing Steve, and that wasn’t an option, that could never be an option, so all Tony did was hitch his thigh up, let his quads rub against that magnificent cock, swallow the rough, needy sounds Steve was making into his mouth.

Steve’s hands have migrated now, one to his waist, the other to his wrists, holding him down, his arms high above his head, curling into fists against the cushioned headboard, and Steve rocks into him, his hips snap in a motion like fucking, their underwear gone, so he can feel the burning furnace livewire heat of Steve’s cock agaisnt his, sticky with precome, and Tony arches up off the bed — or tries to anyway, but he can’t, not with Steve’s weight on him, his hot whisper in Tony’s ear: “God, I — _Tony_,” all broken and pleading and Tony replies, “I want you to— Jesus, I _need_ you to fuck me, I need you inside me, I need— _god_, yes,” he hisses, when their cocks slide together, in Steve’s fist, slick and hot, “God, god, just fuck me open on your cock, fill me up, I need it, Stevie, baby, I need it,” and Steve whispers, “Yeah, then take it take it,” and ruts agaisnt Tony’s body, fucks that beautiful dick into the groove of his hip, dripping with precome, his hands scattering bruises like fairy dust, mouths slotting together desperately.

Steve breaks first, with a shout muffled into a pillow, and he comes with a slow unfurling of his spine, shooting come all over Tony’s chest, all over his cock, Christ there’s so— there’s so _much _of it, that Tony moans, hungry, yearning, and then Steve is wrapping a fist around his cock, jerking him off, fast and sloppy, his hand— fuck, his hand coated in his cum, and Tony comes with a great incandescent wave, rolling through his body and out through his dick, like he’s flying out of himself, like someone cut all the leads off and he’s untethered, except for Steve, holding him down. 

* * *

  
  
  
  


He comes out of it slowly. By then Steve’s already cleaned them out with a handful of Kleenex, and he’s splayed out on his belly next to Tony, carding his fingers through dark, sweat-damp hair. 

“Hungry?” Steve asks, idle, like it’s a question he’s gotten used to asking — but he _hasn’t, _is the thing_, _and Tony’s finally got enough neurons firing to wonder where the _hell _he is. 

* * *

  
  
  


But “Yes,” he says anyway, and follows Steve down the stairs of the house in Malibu.

Steve, who is familiar with it, who knows where the bread box is in the kitchen, who layers Swiss and ham, fries up bacon for BLTs, hands Tony a knife and a cutting board and stuff to make a salad. They make… lunch? — Tony glances out the plate glass windows, the sun slipping down the horizon and figures it for more like an early supper — in relative silence. Steve talks about his day at SHIELD, complains about Fury, described the new manueveur he and Widow came up with, calls up JARVIS to sketch it out in 3D, how Natasha could fall, ricochet off the shield, launch upwards, easy and comfortable in Tony’s space, and he doesn’t want to question it, he doesn’t want this to not be real. He’ll figure out what happened, he tells himself, glowing under Steve’s attention, later, later, just a little bit later. 

Pepper comes in halfway through the meal, steals their carrot sticks, and talks scheduling. “Can you go over the financial forecasts for South America this evening?” she asks, but it’s Steve who shakes his head. 

“We have the thing,” he interrupts. 

“What thing?” Pepper asks and Tony thanks _god _it’s not him asking the question instead. 

* * *

  
  
  
  


A charity ball, is what the thing turns out to be — Capes Against Cancer. Tony protests the name: misrepresentative nomenclature is to be railed against at all times, and Thor is the only Avenger who wears a cape, for - haha - for god’s sake, but both Pepper and Steve override him. Apparently, it’s the spirit of the thing: capes are synonymous with superheroes, and no one will listen to Tony when he insists Iron Man is _way _the fuck cooler than _Superman_, that limpdick whiny loser. 

Steve herds him upstairs to primp after they’re done eating and Pepper’s swept off in a cloud of Hermès silk and Chanel No. 5. They take turns to shower and shave, and when Tony smacks his ass through a damp towel, Steve leers right back, roguish amusement glittering in his eyes. Tony chooses a tux — there’s an Armani, a new one in the closet he’s never seen before, and he touches the charcoal almost-silk with a hum of pleasure, before taking it off the hanger. Steve puts on his class As, olive drabs from the forties — he had to petition the Joint Chiefs to obtain special dispensation to wear the old-style uniform, complete with a peaked cap and a ceremonial saber. But then again, they hadn’t put up much of a fight, had they? When you had a living emblem of America’s military strength walking around, you played real nice. 

“What do you think?” Steve asks him, when he's done, fidgeting with the flag lapel pin nervously. Tony bats his hands away and then surveys him, swallowing. 

“How late do you think we can be to the party?” Tony asks, lightly tamping down the edge of Steve’s collar. His voice has dropped a little, and his pants feel tight. 

Steve grins. “Oh no you don’t,” he says, and kisses Tony again, one of those fond, quick kisses, like sips of honey, and Tony’s fast, he’s got _lightning_ reflexes, dammit, and he snags Steve’s tie before he can pull away. 

And Steve— melts. Curls around Tony, big hands sneaking up underneath his tux jacket, practically dipping him over with his kisses, soft and yearning and unbearable, every second in the dimness of this hidden space, like sugar-sweet icicles are coring into his chest. 

_Not real, not real, _bleats the voice inside his head. _This isn’t real. He isn’t real. _

_Neither are you_, Tony retorts, and hauls Steve closer. 

If this can only be in a dream, Tony will make it last a lifetime.

* * *

  
  
  
  


“This is going _well, _huh?” Pepper says, breathless, when she comes to find him at the bar. Her hair is wispy from dancing, and her cheeks are prettily flushed. 

Tony slants her a happy grin. “A glass of white for the lady,” he says to the bartender, before turning back to her. “You havin’ a good time?”

“Just got Manchin to side with us on HR 431. Next week is going to be…” She whistles, cheeky and bold, and Tony tips his G&T in her direction before taking a sip. 

“Well done, you. Should be a nice bump, in the stock price.”

“Eleven points, at least,” she’s saying, but Tony’s caught the first faint strains of violin from the other end of the ballroom. 

“Hold that thought,” he murmurs. 

“You have somewhere you need to be?” Pep asks him.

“There’s a dance I don’t want to miss,” he says, almost to himself, setting the highball glass on the bartop, and winding his way through the crowd. 

Steve is easy to find, a golden head just above most of the crowd. He’s arguing with Senator Vinnick because that’s what those two idiots always do, and Arnie’s got that same indulgent smile on his face that Tony’s seen him wear around his grandkids. 

“Arnie, hey,” he greets, cutting in the middle of Steve’s “—don’t you think it’s _dangerous? _That the arguments against repealing DADT are the same arguments I heard segregationists use back in my day?!”

“This guy givin’ you a hard time, Senator?” Tony asks Arnie lightly, sliding his palm to rest at the small of Steve’s back. “You want I should boot him out for ya?”

Arnie’s beaming at the both of them, warm and awful grandfatherly. “He’s okay,” comes the reply. “A little hotheaded, but we’ll whip him in shape, won’t we?”

“Speak for yourself, old man,” Tony replies easily. He watches Steve out of the corner of his eye. “I like him just the way he is.”

“Aw, Tony…” Steve protests, but Tony can feel him sinking into his side, a long line of heat, and he hides a smirk. 

“Mind if I borrow him for a little, Senator?”

Arnie waves them off, and Tony slips his hand into Dteve’s. Such an ordinary pleasure — holding hands in a crowded room — but it knocks in right in the gut. _Not real. _That’s fine. He just— he needs to just make this last a little longer. 

“Do you need me to talk to someone?” Steve asks quietly. “Is something wrong? Is this an Aven—”

“Dance with me,” Tony says, turning around, his hand finding Steve’s waist. 

“_Dance— _Tony! Senator Vinnick’s an important guy, how do you think he’s gonna feel that you pulled me away so we could _dance?!_” Steve protests, but his hand’s on Tony’s shoulder, an dhis feet move in time to the music, and where their hands are clasped, Steve’s grip is tight and warm. 

He likes this quite a lot more than he’s letting on, and that’s what lets Tony smile up at him. “Arnie’s a good guy. He’ll think we’re sweet. Young love, all that, he’s a big sap.”

“Young?” Steve repeats, teasing. 

“Well, you’re young, I’m in love,” Tony says blithely, smile firmly in place, though his heart, god, the way it’s pounding. He’s never said this before, never, not even to himself, but _love— _that’s the word for it. _Love. _He feels _sick. _

Steve pulls their clasped hands together, presses them tightly to his chest. “Not just you,” he whispers, pulling them close, closer than you should get in a waltz, really. 

“Wanna sneak off and make out?” Tony suggests with forced lightness. His heart is going to beat right out of his chest. 

But Steve shakes his head, and his stomach plummets — and Tony’s _not _going to examine that — and then he says, “Take me home.”

His throat is dry. He swallows harshly. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Let’s— Let’s go home.”

* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Tony steps out of the hotel foyer. Steve’s still signing autographs, but he’ll be around. The car is pulling up around the corner, shiny and silver, a low-slung Ferrari LaFerrarri he gutted out and then retrofitted. It flies now. The driver’s side door swings open, empty seat beckoning. Tony steps out, into the cool California evening, the skies clear, the moon, a shining gibbous. No stars though. 

Tony pauses. Looks up again. Not a single star. 

He frowns. 

Steve comes up beside him. The roar of the crowd in the atrium follows him out. “What’s wrong?”

“No stars,” Tony replies. “I mean, even in the city, they’re hard to see. All that light pollution, but… we’re far off from downtown, and it’s a clear night, and…”

“Stars?” Steve repeats. He’s frowning. “Like on the flag?”

“Like in the _sky. _Big burning balls of gas in space?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay. No dragons tonight either, Tony. C’mon,” he says, hustling them towards the car, “get in. I’m not driving that deathtrap of yours.”

“What do you mean, no dragons?”

“Like stars?” Steve repeats. “You know— oh come on, Tony. Everyone knows stars are just stories.”

The Hyatt Regency Malibu abuts a sheer, limestone cliff: rooms on the seaside have plate glass windows that don’t open, and a gorgeous view for which you have pay 150% extra. Most people do. The sea is stunning, even at night. Tony watches the sea, watches a tiny wave break white foam over the water. Watches the spot. Six seconds later, it breaks again. 

"Tony?" Steve asks. 

Four, five, six, Tony counts. The wave breaks again. He can hear it now. The slow roar of the sea. It’s filling up his ears. 

"Sir.”

Tony turns around. He’s never seen the other man, but of course, of course it can only be—

"Jarvis.”

Jarvis smiles faintly. “Yes sir. The device is malfunctioning rather badly. Things are bad, out there. The reactor core has gone unstable — it's crashed the city's power. We need to pull you out before the damage extends any further.”

“Yeah,” Tony says. Steve-who-is-not is still touching his shoulder. “Tony?” he asks again. His voice is soft, full of worry. His voice isn’t real. None of this is real. The concern, the care, the desire. 

The love. None of it. 

“Why _this_, Jarvis?” Tony asks desperately. “Why did you show me this?”

“It was the likeliest possib—”

“Bullshit.”

Jarvis pauses. Cocks his head to the side. He looks so alarmingly like Tony in that second, it catches him right in the chest. If he ever had kids, Tony starts to think, and then stamps that thought down with extreme prejudice. “Perhaps,” Jarvis allows slowly. “I did not extrapolate purely from your single line statement. I hypothesized you wanted to come out because of an instigating factor. From there, it was easy to determine that Captain Rogers had captured your… interest.”

“It was _easy,” _Tony grates out, numb with shock. _Easy. _Christ. Tony thought he had been discreet. 

“Yes,” Jarvis continues. “Therefrom, it was reasonable to predict that you would pursue Captain Rogers, once your bisexuality was public. And considering his own fluid preferences in partners—”

“His _what?_”

“Numerous non-American historians in recent years have postulated the possibility that Captain America isn’t heterosexual, their conclusions being likelier in the absence of nationalistic prejudice.”

“What.”

“Furthermore, after our hack of SHIELD servers, I have accesss Captain Rogers’ complete medical file, to verify those conclusions, including psych evalua—”

“**_Stop_**,” Tony says harshly. “No more. You shouldn’t— I shouldn’t find out from— If anyone tells me about that, it should be _Steve. _It should be because he _trusts _me. Dammit. _Dammit. _Jarvis, what I was asking was, why the hell did you think Steve would be _interested _in _**me**_?!”

Jarvis blinks slowly. Like the question is confusing. “Sir?”

“I’m— _me_. He hates me.”

“You are— brave. Intelligent. Kind. Charming. And if all else fails, very rich.”

Tony snorts. “Like he cares.”

“He will,” Jarvis says, with perfect conviction. “He would. No one you have ever pursued has turned you down. If you wanted him, you would have him.”

Tony shakes his head. Laughs softly. He can barely hear it, over the roar of the sea, of his heartbeat. “You know, sometimes… sometimes, Jarvis, you really are…. very sweet.”

“Sir?”

Tony shuts his eyes. When he opens them, he knows, there will be nothing to see. He can feel heat on his body now, real heat. He’s waking up. Something wet trails down his nose. There’s an awful catch in his throat. He whispers, in his head, “It wasn’t real, was it? It was all just in my head.”

“Well, of course it was in your head, sir.” Jarvis’ voice is fading, coming from far, far away. “But why on earth should that mean it can’t ever _be_ real?”

Tony gasps awake, to the sound of shearing metal. The dark headpiece of the device is ripped off, and light streams in, crystal bright and twice as harsh, and Tony blinks into the sudden onslaught. There’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. 

Something dark crosses the light, and in the dimness, his vision gradually recovers. Blue eyes stare into his, a forehead creased with fear. “Tony?” a painfully familiar voice is saying. That hand is still on his shoulder. “Tony!”

_Steve. _“Steve,” Tony whispers, smiling, delirious with pain. “Hi.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Steve asks someone else, before turning back to him. “Tony, dammit, do you know where you are?”

His hand is gripping Tony’s shoulder even tighter. His hair is falling into his face. And all that lovely concern… 

Tony blinks. _God, it hurt. _

“What hurts?”

“Everything,” Tony mutters. And then, “How much of what I’m thinking is coming out of my mouth?”

Steve smiles wryly. “Bits and pieces.”

Well that’s… bad. 

“It’ll be okay. Let’s get you up, huh?” And then his arm is looping under Tony’s, hauling him up. Someone has cut away the straps that had pinned him to the chair. They fell to his feet. 

“There you go,” Steve’s saying. “Tony, what the hell _was _that thing?”

That’s right. The thing. “Jarvis,” Tony says, stretching out his arm. A gauntlet snaps onto his forearm, and Tony aims the repulsor at the chair. “Bye, Cassandra,” he murmurs, and a beam of light shoots out, setting the goddamn thing on fire. 

“Tony, what the_hell!” _

“_Sssssshhhh_,” Tony insists. “Yell _quieter_.”

DUM-E trundles up to the chair as it slowly blackens and burns, and fires at it with an extinguisher. 

* * *

  
  


Half an hour later, Stark Medical has looked him over head to toe, completed a full body CAT scan because they couldn’t exactly stick him in an MRI, made him touch his finger to his nose and name things on flashcards, after which Tony pulled a Steve McQueen in ideological protest and made a run for it. 

Until he’s ambushed by Captain America in the waiting room. Who is— _smiling at him. _

“You’re supposed to be a Nazi,” Tony tells him, irritated. 

The smile dims. “What?”

“You’re supposed to be way less cute, and you’re supposed to _shoot _me.”

Steve purses his lips like somebody’s cranky maiden aunt. “This is a reference, isn’t it?”

“How has _no one _shown you The Great Escape.”

“I’ve been busy.” Steve is glaring at him. 

Ah. “Fair enough. Wanna watch it now?”

Steve blinks. “_Now?_”

Tony shrugs. “I’m recovering from a head injury. I’m not supposed to be alone.”

“Oh.”

Heat crawls up his neck. _Fuck_ ing hell, he’s actually acting on the advice of a _robot. _“Never mind. You know, Jarvis can keep a lookout. I should— go.”

He turns around, feeling Steve’s eyes on him. They’re like needles, like something fiery and sharp dragging down his back. Shit shit _shit_. 

“Tony!”

Tony stops. 

“Maybe I should— I mean, an actual person would be a— a better lookout, right?”

He turns around slowly. That isn’t actually true. Jarvis would not get bored. Jarvis wouldn’t fall asleep. Jarvis would be a _much_ better lookout. “You’re right,” he says anyway. “Or at least, you’re better company.”

“I am?”

“Sure you are, cheesecake. Come on. There’s another Steve in this one - prettiest thing Hollywood ever made, you’ll love him.”

Steve smiles, fond, eyes crinkling at the corners. His eyes are blue, blue, bottle glass and Montana skies, and Tony can’t breathe. “I'm sure I will.”

* * *

  
  
  


It’s fun. Really fun. They heckle the Nazis, boo the prison camp officers, polish off three bowls of popcorn before Jarvis has the kitchens send up platefuls of sandwiches. BLTs, Tony tries not to notice. Tony sniffles a little at the end, while Steve turns completely distraught. 

“They _die?!” _he demands, outraged. 

“Oops?”

“They? DIE?!! Why would you make me _watch this?!”_

“It’s an American classic. _You’re _an American classic! It felt like a good fit!”

“The Nazis _won! _Why would you show me a movie where the Nazis—”

“They _didn’t_ win, chuckles. Read a book.”

Steve sighs, theatrical and exaggerated. “You’re im-_poss_-ible.”

“It’s a talent,” Tony bites out. “Sorry I dragged you into—”

“No. Shut up. No.” Steve fidgets. “I’m… I had a good time.”

“You did,” Tony repeats. 

“I… I was wondering if maybe we could do this again. But maybe without the head injury?”

_Again_. He wants to… “And with dinner?”

Oh god. He just said that. He just — 

He said that _out loud—_

Out loud—

Dinner means a _date_. No way he’s getting around that, not even with a battalion of lawyers. Dinner _unmistakably_ means—

“Like a… date?” Steve asks.

“Like— Yes. Like a date.”

Steve stares at him. 

“Or not,” Tony rushes to add. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“No,” Steve says. Tony’s stomach sinks like a fucking rock. _Traitor_, Tony thinks at the traitorous organ. “It _really_ does,” Steve continues. 

_What. _“It does?” Tony asks. Even to his ears, his voice sounds breathless. Jesus, he sounds like a girl. A _teenage_ girl_. _

“You can punch me if you want.”

Tony opens his mouth. _Why would I punch you? _he’s about to ask, but then Steve carefully sets aside the popcorn bowl, leans across the couch, tugs at Tony’s shirt collar and kisses him. 

He imagined it, before. He had, in excruciating detail. And when that hadn’t been enough, he built a billion dollar machine to imagine it for him. To make it so real it had crashed the Greater New York Metropolitan Area’s energy grid, and nearly fried his brains. In every way, in every shape, he had dreamed it and wanted it — he had _yearned. _

But then Steve leans closer, and their mouths brush together. There’s salt on his lips, buttery glaze from the popcorn. Tony groans into it, licks away the taste, until it’s all Steve, only Steve. When he pulls away, their lips cling together, and Tony can barely breathe past the ache in his chest, all the way sunk into his bones. He shivers. 

Steve drops his forehead against Tony’s, and for just a moment, they breathe. The machine hadn’t been able to imagine _that_. 

“I’m thinking of coming out,” Tony admits in a whisper. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s gonna be bad.”

“Maybe,” Steve whispers back. “The world’s changed a lot, in the last seventy years.”

Tony exhales a shaky laugh. “Not _that_ much, it hasn't.”

Steve pulls away. His eyes are only for Tony, and in them, he can see the future. “So we’ll do it together.”

“You and me?” Tony asks. 

“We did it before.”

“And when the storm comes?”

“We’ll face that together too.” 

Tony smiles, and pulls him in, for another quiet, yearning kiss. It ain’t bad, he thinks, this love business. And the future looks wonderful. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to hit kudos <3  
find me on tumblr @pasdecoeur


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